The Joy of Love and the Ecstasy of Grief
by Ally147
Summary: <html><head></head>She was beautiful in the firelight. D/Hr, Post-war AU, EWE. Written for the Dramione Remix Mini Fest on LJ</html>


This was my submission for the Dramione Remix Mini Fest on LJ, where all submissions had to come in under 1000 words (thought I've tweaked this a tad since, adding back lines that were edited out...). My remix couple this time was Buffy/Angel from, obviously, 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'. Some quotes were taken directly from Buffy, in particular the season three episode 'The Prom'. A full list will be at the end.

**WARNINGS: **Vampire!Draco, some profanity, sappy, not the happiest of endings.

**DISCLAIMER**: In its use of intellectual property and characters belonging to JK Rowling, Warner Bros, Bloomsbury Publishing, et cetera, this work is intended to be transformative commentary on the original. No profit is being made from this work.

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><p>She was beautiful in the firelight. The flickers of light picked up every nuanced colour in her hair, the rich browns along with the coppers, the ambers and the golds that were threaded throughout. It was a poor substitute for how she looked in the sunlight – he couldn't even remember what she looked like in the sunlight anymore – but it would have to do for now.<p>

For nearly three years, two since his… _infection_, she had never once wavered in her love and support. Not during their sixth year, where all he had to live for were their crazed, passion-fuelled interludes under the Quidditch stands. Not a year later, when he was knocked unconscious by a stray curse during the war and bitten by a wandering vampire who had been indiscriminately feasting on the dead, turning some but not others in a pattern Draco hadn't the faculties to discern at the time. Not even when his bloodlust reached such a fever pitch that it was all he could do not to sink his newly pointed teeth into the supple, creamy skin of her neck and bleed her dry.

It had been Hermione who ventured out to local butchers to find blood for him – who had held the blood in a bag to his mouth when his outright refusal to hunt and kill an animal or take the blood from her offered vein left him nearly comatose. It had been Hermione who took him in when his parents learned what he was and cast him out, happier to treat him as 'dead and gone' rather than 'dead and here'. It had been Hermione who began shifting her schedule to accommodate her vampire boyfriend and never once complained, greeting him as always with a loving smile and a kiss, and it was all Draco could do not to drown in his guilt.

There was a time in his life where he might have been tickled pink at Granger's assertions that she'd rather be with him than with her merry band of Gryffindors, but that certainly wasn't the case now. He had seen the look of longing on her face when she told him the Potter and Weaselette were due to spawn their first any day now. He had watched as she forewent any kind of normal life in favour of sitting with him in the dark, her skin losing its soft, golden hue until she was almost as pale as he was. She was becoming painfully thin and malnourished, too; she hadn't thought it polite to eat real food in front of him when he would never be able to partake himself. He knew she was dangerously close to losing her job since she hardly slept at night anymore, only three or four hours at the most.

He knew, too, that he was – quite literally – a dead weight holding her down, preventing her from having any kind of normalcy in her life. He knew that after three years of heaven in the hell his life had become, it was time to let her go, time to leave her to the life he was preventing her from leading.

"Draco?"

He looked up from his mental musings to find her smiling at him over her parchment, her pallor dull and her cheekbones thin.

He cleared his throat and replied, "Yes?"

"You've been quiet all night," she stated, setting her quill down before moving to sit beside him. "Is something wrong?" she questioned, taking his hand in hers.

He swallowed and gripped the armrest of his chair with his free hand, fighting down the urges that always struck with her touch – the urge to hold her down, to fuck her into the carpet, to feed from her, to turn her…

He never told her about those urges.

"I've been thinking," he began, his voice tight with restraint.

"A dangerous pastime," she joked. When he didn't reply, she encouraged him with a gentle squeeze of his hand. "What about?"

He forced himself to meet her eyes, but not before glancing to where he had surreptitiously stowed his packed bags before she had arrived. "Us being together… it's unfair to you."

Hermione's mouth fell open in shock. "What?" she breathed, pulling her hand away.

"You should be with someone… someone who can take you into the light." The words were thick and oppressive in his mouth.

"I don't care about that!" she protested, gathering her wits in a desperate show of stubbornness that almost made him smile. "I've told you before that I don't."

"But you will," he snapped, harsher than he intended. "Before you know it, Granger, you'll want it all. You'll want a husband, children, a normal life, the works. You deserve someone whole, someone who is actually able to give you those things."

"Who are you to tell me what's right for me?"

"Have you even thought about all this?" he asked, gesturing wildly at their darkened surroundings as _all this_. "Have you ever seriously, rationally considered any of this? I am, quite literally, forever."

"Of course I've thought about it," she retorted with venom. "It's pretty hard not to."

"Then you know I'm holding you back," he yelled. "Merlin, Granger, you must have noticed that much by now. Fuck, when you look at me now, you're not even really looking at _me_! You're only looking at the thing that killed me."

Tears began to glisten in her eyes, but she made no effort to contradict him. Instead, she focused her gaze to the floor and wrung her hands together.

"I've packed some bags. I'm leaving."

Hermione gasped and her eyes flew up. "What? When?"

"Tonight. I have to go, Granger. I can't stay here, we both know I can't."

"But where will you go?"

He shook his head. "I haven't decided yet. And even if I had I wouldn't tell you."

She gave a tremulous nod at that. "Is this real?" she whispered.

Draco sighed and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her waist and burying his nose in her hair. "I'm sorry, Granger."

Their last kiss was soft and bittersweet, a gentle pull of lips and a tender stroke of tongues that was wet with their tears and spoke perfectly the farewells and reassurances that words at that moment could not manage.

"I will always love you, Hermione," he whispered against her lips. "Be happy. Live the life you were meant to live. Fall in love with some git, have a family, and forget about me."

He turned away then, hardly able to watch as Hermione fell to her knees and began to sob. What little there was left of his heart felt like it was being ripped to shreds, and he knew that if he didn't leave right then, then he never would be able to.

_It's for the best, _he repeated over and over in his mind.

He moved silently around the room, gathering his bags with his new, unnatural strength to the sorrowful tune of her cries. Stopping at the door, he chanced one glance back.

She truly was beautiful in the firelight.

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><p><strong>AN: <strong>When I was writing this, the word limit was quite difficult to stick to. I had so many ideas for how to expand this story. Would that be something you might be interested in? It probably wouldn't be a multi-chap, just a far longer extension of this one-shot. Let me know what you think, and leave a review, pretty please?

**QUOTES TAKEN DIRECTLY FROM 'BUFFY': **

_"You and me being together… it's unfair to you."_

_"You deserve someone who can take you into the light." "I don't care about that." "But you will."_

_"Who are you to tell me what's right for me?" _


End file.
